


Keep Burning

by Sparkleymask



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Post-Game(s), Post-Trespasser, Reunion Sex, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-16
Updated: 2017-01-16
Packaged: 2018-09-17 16:35:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9333614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sparkleymask/pseuds/Sparkleymask
Summary: Dorian had become important enough, as a prominent member of the Lucerni, for his death to count as news. The merchant didn’t know the details, only that it had taken place on Magister Pavus’s own estate – considered a bit gauche on the part of the assassin’s employer, by all accounts – and that it had been bloody.A fill for the prompt, "One of them (for any reason at all) is led to believe the other had died and mourns them. Then their LI comes back. Cue feelings and tears."





	

**Author's Note:**

> A thing started way back in October for the Adoribull Kink Meme Fill Week, that really, really got away from me.
> 
> Original prompt [here](http://dragonage-kink.livejournal.com/15543.html?thread=61284791#t61284791).

Dorian’s laughter was warm through the crystal. It still astounded Bull that, though they were so many miles apart, he had the means to hear it as if they were in the same room.

“I said nothing of the sort.”

The faint clink of glass, then Dorian’s footsteps on the hard floor – Bull wasn’t sure what – marble perhaps? He tried to picture it. He tried to picture the whole room, tall windows, expensive fabrics, Dorian still in his elaborate robes. How long was his hair now? Maybe he would ask later.

“Bet you were thinking it, though.” He leaned back against the pillows on the narrow bed. Too few of them, really, and he would probably need to supplement them with a rolled up blanket later in order to lie down without puncturing the mattress.

But it was good to be sleeping in a bed after several weeks on the road. The job had been well-paid, and he had chosen the luxury of his own room. It was as much for the Chargers’ sake, after all. While they all liked Dorian well enough, their patience for overhearing Bull’s conversations with him only stretched so far.

It was good to be able to get comfortable, as well, without having to keep half an ear out for trouble. The inn was safe, and Dorian had assured him he had no early commitments the next day, leaving them hours at their disposal. All the signs pointed to the conversation being a long one, with a strong possibility of later, when Dorian was relaxed and a little tipsy, devolving into something satisfyingly filthy.

“I was. But that tiresome man has already taken up too much of my evening. Tell me about—" The sound of his leisurely pacing stopped abruptly.

For a moment, the quiet was so complete that Bull was concerned the connection had been severed. “What is it?”

“I’m not sure.” Dorian had lowered his voice considerably. “I thought I heard—"

The loud crash shocked Bull upright. The cause of the initial noise wasn’t clear, but was quickly followed by the sound of smashing glass, and Dorian’s cry of alarm.

“Dorian!” It was out of panic, instinctive – he knew there was nothing he could do.

Another crash, and a cry of pain, though he couldn’t be certain whether it was Dorian’s. Briefly the sounds were muffled, then silence.

“Dorian?” It came out strangled, his heart feeling like it was trying to crawl up his throat. “Please, Dorian…”

He knew before he finished speaking that there would be no response. The crystal’s glow had faded to nothing.

He wasn’t sure how long he sat there, paralysed both by shock and the uncertainty of what to do next. Eventually he stood, his legs numb, and crossed the hall to the room Krem was sharing with Rocky and Stitches.

He knew he must have told them what had happened, but later he could never remember exactly what he said.

*

It was agreed that they would detour to the Tevinter border. The Chargers accompanied him as far as Tantervale; he refused to allow them further. They had been offered a job in Starkhaven, and that was where they would stay until Bull rejoined them.

He didn’t really have a plan. He couldn’t reasonably cross the border – fighting with the Qunari had become even more aggressive over the past year, and there was no way he would make it to Qarinus.

He knew, deep down, there would be no point even if he could.

In the end, he met a merchant on the road just outside Hasmal. While the man seemed surprised to find a Tal Vashoth travelling alone, he was not unfriendly. They chatted, small talk at first, before Bull prodded him for gossip from Tevinter.

Dorian had become important enough, as a prominent member of the Lucerni, for his death to count as news. The merchant didn’t know the details, only that it had taken place on Magister Pavus’s own estate – considered a bit gauche on the part of the assassin’s employer, by all accounts – and that it had been bloody.

Bull thanked him and continued on. When he could be sure he was alone, he sat down by the side of the road, and wept.

*

He made his way to the villa, even so. They had been due to meet there in the next few weeks, and some masochistic part of himself compelled him to keep the appointment.

When he arrived it looked so much like previous visits that he could almost imagine there was nothing wrong. A smattering of late-blooming flowers brightened the garden; the grass, long but not yet encroaching on the path, rustled peacefully in the breeze. He half expected Dorian to open the door as he approached, clearly desperate to run to him but choosing to lean against the jamb, arms folded – _What took you so long?_

The illusion was shattered the moment he stepped inside. Before their stays Dorian would arrange for the rooms to be cleaned and cupboards stocked, but now the air was stagnant with neglect, and a thin layer of dust coated all surfaces.

He climbed the stairs to the bedroom on the first floor. The curtains were closed, the blankets folded neatly at the foot of the bed. He went to the window, pushing aside the curtains. The window latch was stiff, requiring some careful jostling before he was able to open it. Dust motes, disturbed by his movement and the fresh air, spun lazily in the sunlight.

He imagined Dorian on the bed, half-dressed, laughing as Bull lifted his leg and pressed a kiss to the sole of his foot.

He imagined Dorian on a marble floor, eyes open and lifeless, blood spreading in a smooth pool around him.

The sound of hooves drifting through the open window pulled his focus back to the present. More than one horse. Dorian often brought an escort part of the way, but always made the last part of the journey alone, always so careful about keeping the location secure.

And Dorian was dead.

Bull moved silently back to the ground floor, pressing himself to the wall at the foot of the stairs. From there he had an unobstructed view across the hallway to the front door.

He heard several riders dismount. He listened to the quiet jingle of metal, the scuff of boots on the doorstep. He watched the handle turn.

There were four of them. None of them mages, and armed only with daggers. Even without the element of surprise, the doorway acting as a choke point, and the frenzy of Bull’s anger, they would have stood little chance.

When it was over he gave the bodies only a cursory search. He already knew from their clothing that they were Tevinter, and from their actions that they were hostile. He didn’t need to see the details confirmed in writing.

He found some potions and bandages in one of the kitchen cupboards, and patched himself up.

He left the bodies where they had fallen, blood drying between the mosaic tiles. It didn’t matter. He would not be returning.

*

He met the Chargers at Starkhaven, as he had promised. The job had been a success, and they had been living well off the proceeds while they waited for him to return.

The past few years he had, only half-intentionally, accepted only work that kept them north of the Waking Sea. It had not been difficult: the Inquisition had done wonders for the Chargers’ reputation, and they were never short of offers.

If any of the company wondered why he continued, in those weeks after, to keep them within easy travelling distance of the Tevinter border, they were careful never to mention it within his earshot.

Even if they had asked, he wasn’t sure he would have had an answer for them.

One evening, a little under half a year later, he sat with Krem and gave his instructions.

The next morning he set off alone.

*

Under different circumstances, he thought he might have been happy to return to Ferelden. He had seen plenty of good times there, both before and during the years with the Inquisition. But it was those latter years that were the problem: almost every familiar location had a memory of Dorian attached to it.

He had told Krem that his aim was to return to Skyhold, and he had meant it. He had thought, perhaps irrationally, that if he could be with someone, just for a time, who had loved Dorian as much as he had, it might make the grief easier to bear.

In reality, there was no guarantee the Inquisitor – the former Inquisitor – would even still be there. The events following the Exalted Council had been complicated, and while he had promised the Chargers’ service to her should she ever need it, he had not heard from her in over three years. Rumour of her whereabouts was surprisingly scarce, and he had no way of contacting her directly.

In truth he had always assumed that any future contact would be made through Dorian.

There were other options. He might have managed to gain an audience with Leliana, though he thought the chance of her revealing Cadash’s location – even to him – was slim. There was a possibility Varric had access to her, but Bull had purposely avoided contact before getting the boat from Kirkwall, unable to face the inevitable questions however sympathetic they might be.

Still, he continued south. The further he travelled, the colder it became, but often when the night was clear he didn’t bother setting up camp, sleeping in the open with the memory of Dorian’s voice describing the constellations following him into his dreams.

Some mornings he woke convinced he felt the warm weight of a body next to him, of a hand clasping his. More than once he found himself mumbling a response, half way between sleep and waking, to a voice that did not – could not – exist outside of his head.

_Stay with me a moment longer, amatus._

In all those years fearing he would succumb to madness, he had never expected it to happen like this.

He avoided major roads, choosing instead more circuitous paths that he remembered from previous travels. By the time he reached The White Ram, he had not encountered another living soul in five days.

The last proper outpost on the northern route into the Frostbacks, the inn was the final opportunity to embrace the comforts of civilisation for those heading into the mountains, and a beacon of relief for those returning from them. He had passed it on the road on many occasions, but entered only once, on his first journey to Haven.

The memory was like looking back on another life.

It was twilight, and there was the hint of frost in the air, along with the sound of chatter and music, and the smoky smell of cooking meat.

A wall of warmth and noise hit him when he opened the door. It was busy, every table occupied, the countless conversations almost drowning out the song of the bard playing by the roaring fire. Apart from a few surreptitious glances from those closest, no one paid him any heed when he entered, either used to seeing all sorts of travellers or else too focused on their own business to care much for his.

He pushed his way through the crowd until he reached the bar. A dwarven woman with heat-flushed cheeks and a wild mop of brown hair came over to him. “Welcome, friend,” she said, wiping her hands on her apron before leaning forward on the bar. “What would you like?”

He had not had a drink in weeks. He considered taking one of the rooms, drinking himself into a stupor, and resting in oblivion for a couple of days. It was certainly a tempting option. He ordered an ale.

“You look like you’ve had a long day’s travel,” she said as she pushed a tankard towards him. “Can I get you something to eat?” Her smile was kind, and genuine. That was her job, of course, perhaps more important here than in any common tavern: to welcome, to comfort, knowing nothing about a person and treating them with compassion regardless.

He found himself unexpectedly, profoundly grateful for it.

He took a bowl of stew, which he ate standing at the bar, and another ale. The noise of the crowd seemed to have quietened, or else he had grown used to it. The bard’s voice, sweet but strong, cut through more clearly than before.

He had heard a thousand songs like it, in many different languages. Generic tales of lovers found and lost, the overwhelming high of infatuation, the devastating grief of being separated.

He remembered how alien they had seemed to him when he first came south, how overwrought the described emotions, how nonsensical the lovers’ actions.

“Is there a room I can take?” he asked, the next time the dwarven woman came over.

“I’m afraid we just let our last one, not a half hour before you arrived.” She shrugged apologetically. “So many people this time of year, wanting to cross the mountains before the winter.”

He could easily set up camp further along the road, but couldn’t help but feel a little disappointment. The warmth had made him acutely aware of the tired ache of his muscles and the throbbing of his bad leg – the comfort of a bed would have been welcome. It was still early, though, and if he could find a seat, he could stay for a few hours yet.

He picked up his half empty tankard and surveyed the room. Eventually he caught sight of a table tucked away beneath the staircase. Only part of it was visible from where he stood, but the chair pushed under it was empty.

He was already close by the time he realised the obscured side of the table was occupied. The figure had been sitting very still, the hood of a dark cloak pulled up to all but cover its wearer’s face, with one hand wrapped loosely round the mug of drink on the table.

“Hey, you mind if…”

The figure looked up at him, and Bull froze.

There was no carefully groomed moustache, only a few days’ beard growth in its place, and it altered his appearance so much that for a second Bull could honestly have believed it was just a stranger with a striking resemblance. But those eyes – staring at him, wide with shock, from under the shadow of the hood – were unmistakable.

Bull couldn’t speak.

Dorian moved first. He used the table as support to push himself to his feet, as if the action involved some effort, and Bull could see his hands were shaking. His eyes never left Bull as he made his way round the table towards him, and reached out to touch.

Bull took a stumbling step back. The tankard fell from his hand and clattered loudly onto the stone floor. The noise of conversation dipped suddenly, as people at nearby tables turned to look.

Dorian flinched back. “Alright,” he said. He held his hands up, placating. “Alright.”

With some effort, Bull spoke. “I thought you were dead.”

“Bull, you don’t know how much…”

“Fuck, Dorian.” His throat tightened round the words. “You let me think you were dead.”

Dorian’s expression twisted, as if physically pained. Bull could see him reeling his emotions back under his control, an obvious effort of will that looked like it may snap at any moment. “I know.”

Those at the surrounding tables remained quiet, the weight of their attention heavy.

“But I would appreciate it if we could continue this somewhere more private.”

Bull could hear the strain in his voice as he tried to keep it low. He looked desperate, as if he truly believed Bull might refuse.

“I have a room upstairs. Please, Bull.”

Dorian led the way up the stairs, Bull following dumbly. He still wore the hood, and in the short time it took for them to travel between the table and the room Bull almost began to believe he had merely experienced a vivid hallucination – that the person in front of him would turn, and it wouldn’t be Dorian at all.

When Dorian did finally turn to look at him – more exhausted and worried than Bull had ever seen him, but undeniably him – Bull was shocked anew.

Dorian motioned for him to enter the room first, then glanced briefly along the dark hallway before locking the door behind them.

The air was noticeably cooler compared to the main tavern’s cloying heat, the room not large enough for even a small fireplace. The only furniture was a narrow bed and a table pushed against the wall next to the door. On the table were a jug and bowl, against its legs was Dorian’s pack. Next to that stood his staff, the head of it covered with a tightly-wrapped strip of sackcloth.

The sky beyond the tiny latticed window was dark, the room’s only source of light a lantern hanging near the bed.

Dorian turned from the door and lowered his hood. His hair, long enough to tie back the last time Bull had seen him, had been cut short since then, though it was already grown out enough to begin to curl round his ears. The hood had left it messy, but it was clear there had been no attempt to style it even before then.

Dorian ran a hand through it, which made little difference. “I was going to tell you,” he said. His breath caught on the last word, quickened with emotion. He took a few halting steps. “The moment it was safe, I swear to you.”

It was all Bull could do to watch him, to hear his voice, after so many months of believing he would never have the opportunity to do so again. Under the cloak he could see Dorian’s clothes were unusually simple: a plain tunic, trousers made of sturdy but unadorned leather, a pale cotton scarf round his neck. Nor were his eyes lined with the customary kohl – the skin beneath only smudged dark by lack of sleep.

“I wanted, so badly, to…” Dorian glanced away with a small shake of his head, an admonishment of himself, not of Bull.

He stood close enough to reach, but Bull couldn’t move.

Dorian paused, refocused. “It would have put your life at risk as much as my own. The only safe way I could have contacted you was with the crystal, and that was broken the night I – well, that night.”

It was too much: Dorian, fully himself, but somehow jarringly different to the static version Bull had carried with him these past few months; messier, more complex, more vulnerable, a thousand times more vivid.

It shook him, more deeply even than the fact of Dorian being alive, that the memory he had clung to was quite so inferior to the reality. That the part of Dorian he had kept in his heart had eroded so significantly, without him realising it.

“I understand you must be angry with me.”

Somewhere in the depths of himself Bull thought he probably was, but it was such a distant thing, buried under everything else, under the way Dorian was looking at him.

“But please,” said Dorian, and it was careful, and desperate. “Please let me touch you now.”

It was enough to pull the words from Bull. “Yeah,” he said, and it was all he could say. “You should.”

So many reunions in their shared past, and none had been like this. Dorian’s touch was tentative, a hand on the outside of Bull’s arm, safe instead of intimate, but firm enough that Bull could feel the faint tremble in it.

Whatever had been keeping him frozen in place broke, and he pulled Dorian to him. Dorian went, fitting himself to Bull’s embrace, pressing his face to Bull’s skin to muffle a quiet cry of relief.

Bull clung to him, nuzzled into his hair. His memory had not even attempted to recreate this: the smell of him, unique under layers of dust from the road and the smoke of the tavern. Bull breathed him in.

Gradually, Dorian lifted his head, lips brushing along Bull’s bare skin until he reached his mouth.

They kissed, and it only made the sharp stab of longing in his chest worse.

When Dorian pulled back his brow furrowed, and he cradled Bull’s cheek with his hand. “Oh amatus, don’t.” He swiped his thumb under Bull’s eye, and it was only then that Bull realised he was crying. “Please don’t.”

Bull swallowed, blinking his vision clear. “I lost you,” he said, voice thick.

Dorian pulled him down into another kiss, more fervent than before. “Forgive me,” he whispered, on each break for breath, “forgive me, forgive me...”

The heavy cloak was rough under Bull’s hands, and he wanted nothing more than to get it out of the way. Desire, if not quite arousal – something less defined, and even more visceral; a need to feel Dorian’s skin against his that went beyond the carnal.

He tugged on the fastening at Dorian’s neck until it came free, then pushed the cloak off his shoulders to fall to the floor in a heap. In turn, Dorian slid the straps of Bull’s pack from his shoulders so that too could be discarded.

Half undressed and mouths barely parting they went to the bed, Dorian lying back on the mattress and Bull following him down.

The rest of their clothing was removed in a fumbling joint effort, until Bull could finally run his hands along bare skin. When Bull pulled back to look at him his eye caught on two long scars which ran not quite parallel along the base of his throat. They weren’t raised, smooth to touch – a sign of solid magical healing – but stood starkly white against the brown.

He didn’t realise he had been staring until Dorian brought him back with a firm push of his shoulder. “Onto your back,” he whispered, and Bull, unexpectedly relieved at the instruction, obeyed.

Dorian climbed into his lap, straddling his thighs, one hand braced on Bull’s belly, the other curling around his cock.

Bull took hold of his arm. “I need…” He fought for the right words. “I need you to be close.”

Dorian’s expression softened in understanding. He shifted up Bull’s body until they were face to face, until he filled Bull’s senses, and narrowed his focus to the exclusion of all else.

Bull curved his hands round Dorian’s thighs, feeling the muscle move as the shifting of Dorian’s body gradually found a rhythm. He became lost in the pinpoint awareness of Dorian’s pleasure; the increasingly distracted slide of his mouth, the clutch of his fingers, each quiet, gasping moan.

Every detail was familiar, and he took it in as if it were for the first time.

He dragged a hand up to cup Dorian’s ass, then skimmed his fingertips along the cleft. Dorian shuddered, reaching back to grasp Bull’s wrist and guide it between their bodies. “Touch me, I just…”

Dorian came with one of Bull’s hands on his cock and the other on the back of his neck, holding him through it.

He barely paused to catch his breath before slipping free to trace a line of feverish kisses down Bull’s chest.

Bull stopped him with a hand on his back, less gentle than he intended.

Dorian looked up at him, and there was a tension in his gaze entirely unfitting for a man who had come moments before. “Let me do this for you.”

“No.” It wasn’t how he had meant to say it, clumsy with a kind of drunkenness that had nothing to do with alcohol.

Dorian’s expression went horribly blank.

“I mean…stay here. Where you were.”

Dorian relaxed with understanding, though the tension didn’t quite leave him. He moved back up to his previous position, slid his hands round the base of Bull’s horns, and brushed the words against Bull’s mouth. “Whatever you want.”

Bull stroked one hand through Dorian’s hair, a light grip that still made Dorian’s breath catch, and wrapped the other round his own cock. Dorian sighed, and pushed back against his hand, and bit encouragement into the flesh of his shoulder.

Bull remembered little of what came after. The small, satisfied sound Dorian made in his throat as Bull’s spend striped his buttocks. A last, languid kiss. The warm weight of the blankets.

The beat of Dorian’s heart, slowing into sleep.

*

He woke to the dim pre-dawn, a guttering lantern, and the warmth of a body against his side. He had woken many times, the past few weeks, to the same feeling.

This time, the warmth didn't fade with the vestiges of sleep.

Dorian’s head rested high on Bull’s chest. A lock of his hair tickled Bull’s lip, and his breath was warm and even. The fingers of his left hand lay in a relaxed curl over Bull’s heart.

He ran his hand lightly along Dorian’s side, hip to shoulder. His skin was cool where it had been exposed to the frigid air of the room, and Bull was surprised this hadn’t woken him. He pulled the heavy blanket up until it covered his shoulders.

Dorian stirred. A tiny shiver, his fingers flexing against Bull’s chest, then the scrape of his beard as he tilted his head just enough to be able to see Bull’s face. His eyes were barely open, his hair an irredeemable mess, and his smile crooked.

Bull wasn’t sure his heart could contain the joy he felt at the sight of him.

“Morning?” said Dorian, his voice scratchy with sleep, both a greeting and a question.

“Not yet.” He brushed the hair back from Dorian’s forehead. “Go back to sleep.”

Dorian sighed and wriggled somewhat gracelessly into a more comfortable position against Bull’s side. “Will you?”

Bull considered. He no longer felt tired. But he felt – peaceful. Like he could stay there, Dorian in his arms, and watch the grey dawn seep through the window forever.

“I want to be awake if you are,” said Dorian, before Bull could answer.

“You hate being awake this early,” said Bull mildly.

“I hate being away from you.”

Bull felt briefly breathless, a constriction in his chest. “That was never my decision.”

He caught a glimpse of Dorian’s grim smile before he ducked his head, hiding his face from Bull’s view.

“Yes, well.” His fingers traced distracted patterns on Bull’s chest for a few quiet moments. Then, “I want to tell you what happened.”

Bull almost said no. This thing they had created, this fragile thing - the anonymous bed, the strange, timeless dawn, unconnected from their real lives, from their past and present – as soon as they talked, it would be broken.

But in a few hours, it would be broken anyway. And he needed to know.

So Dorian talked.

The assassin had been young, inexperienced Dorian thought, and it was that alone which had saved him. A more experienced assailant would not have allowed a struggle. The young man had grabbed the chains Dorian had worn round his neck, and it was their snapping that had given Dorian a sliver of an advantage.

Still, the knife had found his throat before Dorian had managed to immolate its owner where he stood. He had lain bleeding out on the floor of his bedroom until a servant, roused by the noise, came and found him.

A deeper cut, and he would have died within minutes.

Bull listened, and tried not to put images to the words.

“Mae had been staying with me.” His voice was steadier than Bull thought the story deserved. “If she hadn’t, I believe I would have died. I was…” he hesitated, choosing his words, “in a bad way, for some time.”

Bull’s arm tightened round him, a subconscious, futile protectiveness. He knew he should say something, and there was plenty to say, but the words stuck in his throat.

“It was decided,” _Mae decided_ , Bull heard, as clearly as if Dorian had said it, “that until we found out who had ordered my death, we would allow people to believe it had been successful.”

“So they wouldn’t try again.”

“Precisely.”

“It worked.” Bitterness coated the words without his intending it. He had no conscious desire to make Dorian feel guilty, and he could see the wisdom in the decisions that had been made.

But he could still feel, receding but clinging to him like cobwebs, the shadow of his grief.

“By the time I was myself again, the decision had already been made.” The slow movement of his fingers on Bull’s skin paused. “I believe it was the right one.”

Bull heard the note of firmness in his tone just as clearly as Dorian must have heard the bitterness in his.

“I left as soon as I was well. There was little I could do in Tevinter as a dead man. If I had stayed, someone would have found out eventually.”

Something clicked into place in Bull’s mind. It was obvious, now he had taken the chance to consider it. “You’re going to Skyhold.”

“Where could be safer?” He felt Dorian’s smile. “You’re going there also.”

Dorian didn’t ask him for a reason, and Bull was happy not to provide one. There was every possibility Dorian had guessed.

“We still don’t know who was responsible. Whoever it was had managed to infiltrate my home, all my defences. I couldn’t be certain what else they knew. If they knew about us. About the villa.”

“They knew.”

Dorian lifted his head to look at him properly, several emotions hovering at the edges of his expression.

Bull told him about the villa. Dorian watched him without comment as he did so, and when he had finished, lay his head back down Bull’s chest. He made no sound, but Bull could feel the tears on his skin.

“Stupid, really.” Dorian brought his hand up to wipe his eyes. “I knew we could never go back, it’s just…it was ours.”

*

The dawn came, pinks and greys giving way to pale yellow sunlight, filtered through the grimy window panes, leaving faded patterns on the surfaces it could reach. They kissed, and it bled into more, slower than before, hands and mouths lingering, tangled together, staying that way even as they dozed.

The sun was long past the horizon when they finally left the bed to dress and gather their things. Bull was washing his face in the magic-warmed water when Dorian, from across the room, said, “You kept it.”

Bull straightened and wiped the water from his face before looking over.

Dorian was crouched by their bags, no doubt in the process of checking what supplies they had between them. He was holding Bull’s dragon tooth pendant. It was large in his hands – the one he had worn himself was barely a third of the size, easily concealable beneath his magister robes. He held it with a gentle reverence, not looking at Bull.

“Yeah.” Bull dropped the cloth on the table beside the bowl. “Of course I did.”

“Even though…” Dorian stopped. He tucked the pendant back into Bull’s bag, and stood. “I’m a selfish man, Bull. As soon as I got to Skyhold I was going to ask Malika to send for you. Even if – even if it might have been kinder to allow you to move on. To – find someone else.”

Bull almost wanted to laugh, raw and without humour. “There wouldn’t have been anyone else.”

*

It was nearing noon when they finally left the inn. They had eaten a large breakfast, the room downstairs half as busy as it had been the night before. Dorian had taken Bull’s hand across the table, and when one of the barmaids had brought over their food, he hadn’t let go.

The Frostbacks gleamed in the sunlight, the peaks visible in a blue, cloudless sky. Bull doubted it would stay that way for long; he remembered well enough the unpredictability of those mountains – the sudden storms, the way clouds could gather seemingly in moments, catching you off guard. But both of them had plenty experience with that. And he didn’t think he would ever forget the route.

A little way ahead of him Dorian stood rubbing his gloved hands together, hunching his shoulders in a manner that bordered on melodramatic. The familiarity of it ached in Bull’s chest, but it was a pleasant, distant sort of ache. Perhaps soon it wouldn’t ache at all.

“Let’s get this over with, then.” Dorian tugged his cloak tighter round himself, but he hadn’t put the hood up. The path was empty here, too late for travellers heading into the mountains, and too early for those coming out of them. He had, for the moment, no need to hide his face.

Bull dropped his pack from his shoulder. One of the straps was looser than he liked, and he bent to tighten it. “Almost ready, kadan.”

When he was done, he lifted his head to find Dorian looking at him strangely.

“I was afraid you no longer thought me worthy of the title.”

It took a moment for Bull to realise what he meant. He certainly hadn’t withheld the endearment on purpose, or even, until that moment, known he had done so.

The way Dorian was looking at him, that brittle hopefulness – he hadn’t looked at him like that for a long time. Bull wasn’t going to lie to him. “I guess I got used to the idea of never saying it again.”

Bull could see the apology forming in the downturn of Dorian’s lips, and he leaned down to kiss it away. It worked: when they separated, they were both smiling.

Dorian traced his thumb along the edge of Bull’s mouth. “There,” he said quietly.

They continued along the path, the shape of the peaks seeming to gradually shift the closer they got to the pass. One of them, Bull knew, had given the inn its name, but he had never been able to work out which it was.

“Hey kadan,” he said, stopping to look over his shoulder at Dorian, a few paces behind. “You know which of these is the White Ram?”

Dorian had stopped too, leaning on his staff to catch his breath. He observed the loose rock ahead of them critically. “Help me over this ridge and I’ll tell you.”

Bull grinned. He offered his hand.

Dorian took it, and began to talk.

**Author's Note:**

> [Now with amazing art](http://fanjapanologist.tumblr.com/post/155960074973/for-keep-burning-by-sparkleymask-which-ripped-my), by [Nele](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Nele/pseuds/Nele)!


End file.
